China law

It is all too easy for lawyers in the West to be oblivious to the fact that the access to justice and the rule of law that, by and large, we enjoy in the Western democracies are not available to millions of our fellow citizens elsewhere in the world. With the Beijing Olympics now little over a fortnight away, Jamil Anderlini’s article in FT.com, Rewards and risks of a career in the legal system, offered a corrective to our all too often blinkered outlook.

In it he highlights the position in China, contrasting the very different professional experiences of Teng Biao, an activist lawyer on the outskirts of Beijing, and Tao Jingzhou, a partner in Jones Day’s Beijing office.

The realities of living in a totalitarian state also lend uncertainty to the legal system. Opportunities abound for powerful individuals to intervene, says He Weifeng, an outspoken legal professor at Peking University. “Actually, there is no real legal system in the western sense in China,” he declares.

Enforcement of existing legislation is often lax – something that becomes apparent when you compare China’s excellent environmental laws with the reality outside the window or read the country’s constitution, which guarantees all citizens freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of political association. In criminal cases and high-profile civil cases, political interference is rife, while in smaller cases bribing judges and prosecutors is the norm.

“The biggest problem with China’s legal system is that politics and the law are not separate,” says Mr Teng. “An independent judiciary is not possible under the current system because the law is regarded as a tool to serve the party.”

Badly done Mr Brown

Read Kate Hoey’s article Olympic ideals? It’s a grotesque charade on Telegraph.co.uk for a take on the Olympic torch fiasco on Sunday that Gordon Brown will not enjoy.

This heavy mob [the Chinese toughs in blue tracksuits] that charmlessly controlled the torchbearers yesterday, shouting orders at the runners, showed that even a public-relations offensive by the Beijing authorities is a brutal and heavy-handed affair. When the torch arrived no one saw the flame or even the runner – the Downing Street gates opened and the Prime Minister, in front of a small crowd of trusted apologists, participated in a gravely miscalculated photo opportunity.

Protesters were not just drawing attention to China’s oppression in Tibet but they were speaking out against its dismal record of support for the genocide in Darfur and the long-running military dictatorship in Burma.

Using a form of “spin” of which the politburo in Beijing would be proud, our powers-that-be decided to make a distinction between the thousands of pro-Tibetan and the pro-Chinese spectators along the route. Pro-Tibetans were “demonstrating” or “protesting” while the “Chinese were celebrating” (with help from their Embassy, which provided them with flags and banners praising the Motherland).

I simply cannot understand why Gordon Brown has allowed himself to be embroiled in this mess. It shows either bad judgment or bad advice.

Enough said.

Home from home

If the Chinese (and the London 2012 National Olympics Committee) were hoping that the Olympic torch relay across London was to be a journey of harmony and peace, they will have been disappointed. Protesters, the weather, and Londoners’ apathy (did they really think that the participation of celebrities, the curse of Western life, was going to ensure a respectable turnout) have seen to that. Two things struck me reading the reports and watching the news. First the involvement of the Prime Minister, always one to avoid the difficult moment (but then as I have posted before he talks more about courage than showing it). Thus, according to Reuters,

Brown greeted the torch behind Downing Street’s closed steel gates in front of a vetted crowd as protesters scuffled with police outside and Beijing supporters waved Chinese flags and banged drums.

The Chinese will have felt well and truly at home.

And, secondly, the evident discomfort of Tessa Jowell, interviewed about the protests by the BBC,

“The welcome of the Olympic torch to London is not the same as condoning the human rights regime in China or condoning the treatment of Tibet.”

Only up to a point (and her face made that clear). China’s view is clear: the Games should not be politicized. Similarly, the IOC has vigorously defended its policy of non-involvement in politics. But as history has shown time after time, sport and politics are inextricably linked, and sport is used, directly and indirectly, for political purposes across the world. The Chinese are as guilty (if that is the right word) as anyone else, as the Beijing Olympics are being used by the Chinese themselves to demonstrate that the Chinese regime has changed.

The problem is that you cannot have it both ways, using sport for your own political agenda, and yet deny the same to those who do not share your views. Beijing Olympic torch relay spokesman Qu Yingpu let the mask slip, when he told the BBC, “This is not the right time, the right platform, for any people to voice their political views.” Yet as Tessa Jowell pointed out, lawful, peaceful protest is part of our democratic tradition. It is just that peple don’t like their parties being spoilt.